The controversial dark sky lighting ordinance that would require all Page businesses to turn off their storefront lighting by at least 10 p.m. will be discussed at a public hearing tonight.
Among other restrictions, the proposed ordinance would dictate all Page businesses come into compliance with the new laws within seven years, as well as require all outdoor lighting be replaced with bulbs of a specific brightness and temperature rating. Lighting fixtures would also need to be replaced or rebuilt to provide shielding above the bulb to prevent upward glare — the biggest factor in sky glow that contributes to light pollution.
Affected residents will be able to appeal to Page City Council at 5:30 p.m. tonight at the council chambers in City Hall with any concerns they have with the ordinance. While not officially on the books yet, reworks of Page’s lighting laws have been ongoing for several years now. An effort to expedite the process through the Planning and Zoning Commission as well as Community Development staff has resulted in the current proposal.
Commentary heard at the public hearing could sway council on whether or not they adopt the ordinance as law, deny it or ask that it be rewritten.
In the weeks since word broke on what the new ordinance would change, and the subsequent public outcry, several new developments revealed in discussions between public officials have been brought to Chronicle’s attention.
An email correspondence between Community Development Director Kimberly Johnson and Page Utility Enterprises Manager Bryan Hill shows a discord between the utility company and some of the wording within the ordinance.
Hill, who is overseeing the utility’s steady replacement of Page’s streetlights, said PUE did not have an issue with provisions that required shielding and temperature ratings for public lights. Because the city would also have to comply with all of the provisions in the ordinance, all new streetlights and public lighting fixtures would have to meet the same standards as businesses. Hill has said PUE is already replacing the city’s aging high-pressure sodium street lamps with LED bulbs as the HPS bulbs burn out. The utility has already been using a lower temperature bulb in the replacements that meet those requirements for both cost-saving measures and to continue Page’s history as long-standing dark sky friendly city, he said.
However, Hill was most concerned with the lack of specific wording in the ordinance dictating how “Right of Way” (streetlights) lights ought to be set up. Specifically, he questioned the phrase “light trespass” applying to streetlights, going as far as calling it paradoxical.

The ordinance, as currently written, dictates all outdoor lighting not commit “light trespass” to reduce sky glow. What constitutes light trespass is not specifically fleshed out in the proposal.
Hill wrote that, by their very nature, streetlights inherently commit “light trespass.” This creates a conflict for the utility in their streetlight replacement project, Hill continued, adding that his and PUE staff’s interpretation of the ordinance as is would lead them to believe they would have to remove all streetlights from the cityscape to become compliant.
“[This is] highly problematic,” he said.
In the email, Hill alluded that the wholesale removal of streetlights is likely not a goal on anyone’s radar, especially for Page citizens. He asked language that utilizes “light trespass” in the right of way section of the proposal is re-examined to avoid a conflict in the near future.
In another memo to Community Development staff dated Aug. 22, Lt. Larry Jones on behalf of the Page Police Department cited several issues the police had with provisions in the ordinance as well.
Echoing the concerns of several outspoken Page citizens, Jones wrote that department was wary of provisions that would reduce public lighting.
“Decreased lighting could, in the police department’s opinion, have an impact on crime and crime prevention,” he wrote. “Businesses/residences with surveillance equipment would be ineffective at night without proper lighting (and changing to motion lighting could be cost-prohibitive for some) which would have an effect on successful investigation/prosecution.”
Jones said the department also took issue with the “light trespass” wording and cited several other parts of the ordinance as unclear.
He also questioned how police could enforce some of the lighting provisions because they were “vague.”
Although Johnson previously told the Chronicle in July that the Page Police Department did not bring forward any concerns about the lighting ordinance when it went to council for its first reading earlier in July, Jones said on Tuesday there was likely a “miscommunication” that occurred between the PD and community development at that time. In the following weeks, the department noticed what Jones described as points of concern that eventually developed into the memo sent last week.
Jones also insinuated that the department did not have enough evidence to determine whether or not stricter dark sky rules either reduced or increased crime.
“Upon checking with the Flagstaff Police Department, they have not studied the impact on crime after the dark sky initiative was implemented in their city. The city of Sedona has also not studied the impact on crime based on the dark sky initiative,” he concluded.
The International Dark Sky Association — an advocacy group working with city officials to write the ordinance — has cited several studies that claim increased lighting within cities does not decrease crime rates.
The most recent study the group mentions on their website — a 2015 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health — looked at traffic collisions and crime in 62 authorities across Wales and England, “and found that lighting had no effect, whether authorities had turned them off completely, dimmed them, turned them off at certain hours, or substituted low-power LED lamps.”